June 04, 2010

Kirk accepts responsibility for series of 'mistakes' on military resume

Kirk apologizes for misstatements about military career

Senate candidate described inaccuracies as 'mistakes'

By Todd Lighty, John Chase and Rick Pearson

Tribune Reporters

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk accepted responsibility
Thursday for a series of misstatements about his Navy Reserve career,
including that he served in the Gulf War, that he once commanded the
Pentagon war room and that he came under fire while flying intelligence
missions over Iraq.

Kirk blamed several of the inaccuracies on his attempts to translate
"Pentagonese" for voters or on inattention by his campaign to the fine
points of his 21-year military career. In an effort to stem the
political damage, he also released his military personnel evaluations
and promised to fix any errors found by anyone, from the media to his
political opponents.

"I would describe them as mistakes ... and for me going forward if you
see a problem, fix it," Kirk said during an appearance before the
Tribune editorial board. "And when you're in this environment, you
should probably follow a strict policy of only talking about what is
absolutely documented."

Kirk would not directly answer questions about whether the series of
errors amounted to an effort to embellish his military credentials as
he takes on Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the first-term state treasurer,
in an open-seat Senate race with national implications.

But the five-term North Shore congressman said that in the future he
would emphasize his public policy record and let his military paperwork
speak for itself — a pledge indicating his military service may have
turned from a strong advantage to a weakness.

The records controversy has taken the focus off Giannoulias' troubled
tenure at his family's failed Broadway Bank, which repeatedly lent
money to crime figures while he was a senior loan officer. And national
Democrats have used Kirk's errors to counter criticism of Democratic
Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who was in the
Marine Reserve stateside but made misstatements about serving in
Vietnam.

Kirk said the Blumenthal controversy prompted him to order a scrubbing
of his own military resume, and he answered questions about a string of
mistakes, including some that had not previously surfaced.

For the first time, Kirk on Thursday said assertions he came under
enemy fire while flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq in 2000 may
not be true because there is no record of whether his aircraft was
being fired upon. While speaking from the U.S. House floor in October
2003, however, Kirk was more certain: "The last time I was in Iraq, I
was in uniform flying at 20,000 feet and the Iraqi Air Defense network
was shooting at us."

Kirk also revealed that a letter he sent to his congressional district
in 2009 described him as a veteran of Operation Desert Storm — the
first Gulf War to chase Iraq out of Kuwait in the early 1990s —
although he did not participate in that war.

Kirk said his congressional staff erred years ago when they claimed he
was the only member of Congress to "serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom,"
the invasion of Iraq after 9/11, when in fact he served stateside. Kirk
noted the statement, on his Web site, was fixed in 2005 when the
mistake was discovered.

Kirk acknowledged he overstated his role when he previously said he
commanded the Pentagon's war room during one stint of duty. Instead, he
said, he was responsible for the intelligence side of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Military Command Center. Another officer was in charge of the
armed forces.

The controversy over Kirk's military record took off last week when he
acknowledged that he did not receive the Navy's award for intelligence
officer of the year in 1999.

Kirk, who joined the Navy Reserve in 1989, has repeatedly described the
honor as an individual award from the Navy for his actions during the
war in Kosovo, known as Operation Allied Force. But late last week,
amid media inquiries to the Navy, Kirk corrected his resume to show he
actually received a different award.

That citation, the Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor Award, was given to his
unit while it was in Italy. Navy officers make the nominations for the
award, which is given by a professional organization known as the
National Military Intelligence Association.

The award was properly characterized in a 2000 fitness report Kirk
released last week. On Thursday evening he released additional fitness
reports that backed up his contention his military service has been
exemplary.

Kirk apologized for the repeated misstatements during his meeting with the Tribune.

"You should speak with utter precision. You should stand on the
documented military record," Kirk said. "In public discourse, for high
office, you should make sure that there is a degree of complete
rigorous precision."

All 50 aldermen on the Chicago City Council had to file paperwork earlier this year detailing their outside income and gifts. The Tribune took that ethics paperwork and posted the information here for you to see. You can search by ward number or alderman's last name.

The Cook County Assessor's office has put together lists of projected median property tax bills for all suburban towns and city neighborhoods. We've posted them for you to get a look at who's paying more and who's paying less.

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